A female passenger has been detained by police for throwing six coins at a plane for good luck before take-off in China.
The 66-year-old woman was removed from the Tianjin Airlines flight after admitting to tossing the coins as she was boarding the plane at Hohhot Baita International Airport in Inner Mongolia
All 100 passengers on flight GS6681 departing for Chifeng city were assigned onto a replacement aircraft and the plane took off following a two-hour delay.
A crew member alerted security at about 7:50 am after seeing the woman tossing the coins from the airstairs, Tianjin Airlines said in a statement on Tuesday.
Staff was deployed to search for the change and six 1 jiao coins were located near the aircraft on the tarmac
The woman, identified by her surname Yang, later told police that she had thrown the coins to pray for a safe flight.
She had been detained by police and could face further punishment from airline authorities, the statement added.
The engine of an aircraft would be severely damaged or even destroyed if a coin is sucked into it, according to a professor at the Civil Aviation University of China
‘The engine could tremble, lose speed and even stop in mid-air if a coin were sucked into its core,’ he said. ‘That would put all the passengers on board at great risk.’
A similar incident occurred a year ago when a Chinese woman delayed a Shanghai flight for several hours after she had the great idea of tossing coins in the airplane’s engine for good luck. According to a passenger, the 80-year-old woman tossed nine coins at the engine of China Southern Airlines flight CZ380 while she was boarding on the tarmac, AFP reported.
